


Better

by AudreyV



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Betrayal, F/F, F/M, Revenge, Self-Harm, Sex, Spoilers for 4x01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 14:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12278886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyV/pseuds/AudreyV
Summary: Bonnie sat alone in the restaurant.  Anything was possible, even if nothing would fix this.Spoilers for 4x01.





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> It's back! 
> 
> This is un-betaed because I'm not getting trapped in the "didn't finish the fic from last week and now the episode this week totally contradicts it" hole I fell into last season.
> 
> I was shocked when Annalise pulled out that envelope and I am so here for ADA Winterbottom.

She sat in the restaurant and cried without a sound until it got uncomfortable, then she stuck it out until it was excruciating. When the waiter approached and stuttered out a mention of the bill, Bonnie threw Annalise’s Amex down on the white tablecloth.

“Your card, miss?” The waiter called as she strode toward the spiral staircase.

“Keep it. Buy yourself something nice,” she growled.

She went to a bar down the street, one that was dark and smelled like musty taps and cheap perfume. She clung to the bar drinking well whiskey until her perfectly pressed dress rumpled and everything about her drooped.

 

—

 

She sat in the restaurant and cried until she laughed.

“Whenever you're ready, miss,” the server said politely as she laid the check at Bonnie’s elbow. Bonnie thought the girl might be sympathetic, and knew for sure when she felt a hand gently settle on her shoulder.

“I don't mean to pry but— are you okay?”

“No, but i’ll get there,” Bonnie replied, unnerved by her own honesty. (Chains fallen, ropes snapped, wings no longer clipped. It felt like the giddy weightlessness of a crashing plane.) “I didn't think she'd do it to me. I thought I was special.”

“At least she waited to break up with you until after the others left,” the girl said. “That's something.”

Bonnie laughed bitterly.

“That wasn't a breakup,” she said, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Wasn't it?”

 

—-

 

By eleven she was drunk off cheap whiskey and tired of waiting for Frank to come home. It took her three tries to type the text correctly.

*I'm at your place. I need you.*

He was there in ten minutes even though the drive from his parents’ house usually took twice that.When he burst through the door, she was curled up on his couch wearing one of his old sweatshirts. The clothes she wore to dinner were strewn about the room.

“What happened? She fire you or something?” Frank’s eyes went wide with surprise when Bonnie nodded.

“She did. For real this time.”

“No way. You're fucking with me,” Frank said, even as he enveloped her in his arms. “It won't last. Never does. You fight, you say the worst shit to each other, you make up. It's just like my ma and my sister.”

“Does your mom get wasted and put the moves on your sister?” Bonnie hiccuped and pulled her hands inside the arms of the sweatshirt.

“God, I hope not.” Frank grabbed the whiskey bottle from the coffee table and took a swig. “Bon, you and her, it's always been weird. Like, are you her assistant, her kid, her slave, her mother? Who knows.”

“I don't know how to be without her. She's my compass.”

“And she was probably dragging you to hell. Now you're free. You can do anything.” He pulled her against his chest and didn't flinch when she wiped her nose on his shirt.

Frank listened to her ramble and rant for an hour and a half until he was so distraught on her behalf he kissed her. She'd sobered up far too much by then, but she put her hand on top of his and tugged and guided until his fingers slid inside her again anyway.

“Like this.” Bonnie stepped out of her underwear and bent over the arm of the couch, but Frank caught her arm and turned her around.

“If I can't see your face, you could be anyone,” he murmured against her neck. “I want to look at you while we do it.”

“I'm— there's all of these— “ Bonnie stopped. She felt herself wilt under Frank’s steady blue eyes. “I don't know how long I’ll be able to hold myself together.”

“Bon, this is me. You don't have to hold yourself together.”

He was so careful of her in every way, and he made her come, and in the morning he sang jingles from old commercials while he cooked her breakfast.

It didn't matter that he mumbled “Laurel” when he came inside her.

 

—

 

Bonnie went straight home. After forty five minutes and half a bottle of bourbon, the pull was too strong. She was swinging wildly between feeling nothing and feeling far too much, sobbing and wrecked on her bathroom floor. She needed an anchor.

She knew it was a childish, undignified thing for a grown woman to do, but the familiar contrast of cool metal and warm liquid running down her thigh gave her a moment of peace.It was long enough to breathe, and to regret what she’d just done even if it interrupted the spiral.

She remembered the time Annalise caught her.Annalise’s face was scrunched with worry as she knelt on the bathroom floor and traced the old scars with her index finger, careful to avoid the fresh red line. 

“Sometimes you’ll do anything to feel something,” Annalise murmured.“For me it’s sex.”

Bonnie wasn’t sure what to do with that, so she kept her mouth shut.

“I don’t know that I recommend it, but it leaves fewer scars.” Annalise reached for a bottle of lotion and warmed some between her hands.She reached for Bonnie’s thigh without preamble, and Bonnie was surprised when she relaxed into the touch rather than flinching.

“Does it really?” Bonnie asked quietly.Their eyes met and she knew they were more alike than different.

 

—

 

“You're not going to invite me in?” She leaned in the doorframe and glanced around the shabby room.

“What are you doing here?” Annalise crossed her arms over her chest.“You're drunk.”

“I was, but I'm not anymore. Now I'm just tense.”

Bonnie dropped to her knees. Annalise froze but didn't stop her. Bonnie skimmed her fingertips up Annalise’s thighs.

“Tell me to stop,” she said as she hooked her fingers into the waistband of Annalise’s underwear.

“Why would I do that?” Annalise asked, barely above a whisper.

“Because I'm nothing to you.”Bonnie watched Annalise’s face contort into an expression she couldn’t translate.“You’re not denying it.”

“I’m not dignifying it with a response because it’s ridiculous and you know that.”

Bonnie sat back on her heels and looked up for a moment, then stood. 

“I don’t know anything anymore,” she said quietly.She left, her stomach clenching around the hope that she’d hear footsteps coming after her.

 

—

 

“Whoring you out is low, even for her.”

“I told you, I'm not here for her.” Bonnie shrugged out of her shirt and let it fall to the floor. “I'm here to hurt her.”

“Why would you do that?” Nate asked flatly.

“That's not important.”

“What, she didn't give you the answer to that one?”

Bonnie took a deep breath and resisted the impulse to scream at him.

“You hate her, right?” she asked in an even, measured tone. “And me too?”

“She ruined my life over something you did.”

Bonnie felt her stomach drop out.

“What?”

“She told me about Sam,” Nate said.” That you were like her child, so she needed to protect you by setting me up.”

“I didn't kill Sam.”

“Then who did? Annalise?” Nate asked.

“Wes. He was protecting Rebecca.”

“So that story she told Denver was true.”

“As close to true as any of us can still recognize.” Bonnie shivered. Nate shook his head and turned toward the kitchen.

“Put your damn clothes back on. I’ll make coffee.”

Bonnie nodded numbly. She slowly put herself back together then sat across the kitchen table from Nate.

“I'm gonna regret asking but…” he sighed heavily. “What happened?”

“She fired me.” Bonnie accepted the steaming cup of coffee and floral sugar bowl from Nate. “Used me up and kicked me out with the trash.”

“Once you stopped being useful,” Nate said. “I know how that feels.”

“She betrayed me. So I wanted to do the same thing to her.”

“By coming over here and…”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t think I was your type,” Nate said with a chuckle.

“Well, Eve wasn't home,” Bonnie replied.

“Damn shame.” Nate’s eyes narrowed. “You really think screwing me is the best way to hurt her?”

“You have a better idea?”

“Yeah, actually. I do.”

Bonnie listened. It was better.


End file.
